Carson City Quality of Life tax revenues to rise

Quality of Life tax revenues will ascend from about $2.1 million last fiscal year to $2.6 million in Fiscal Year 2019-20, a Carson City government projection shows.

Those figures were disclosed during a Parks and Recreation Commission meeting Tuesday by Roger Moellendorf, Parks and Recreation Department director, who ventured the opinion that means revenues in FY20 would be about what the take was in 2005 before a recession dwindled sales tax receipts markedly. He referred to it as a “back-to-the-future again” scenario. Carson City voters in 1998 approved Question 18, a Quality of Life initiative, for a quarter-cent in property tax revenue stream to go for such things as the Aquatic Center near the Carson City Community Center, Open Space land and other things aimed at enhancing the community. The latest construction project involved is the multi-purpose athletic center (MAC), now under way, and about which Moellendorf also gave a report.

The MAC, expected to be finished in December, took about $6 million in Question 18 money and $2,5 million more authorized last year by the Board of Supervisors.

The Quality of Life Q18 money is divided up in usage with 40 percent allocated for parks capital, 40 percent for Open Space and 20 percent for maintenance. Moellendorf’s projections, provided by the city Finance Department, were based on a 4 percent potential growth factor. They call for $2.2 million this fiscal year, $2.3 million in FY17, $2.4 million in FY18, $2.5 million in FY19 and would reach $2,657,163 in 2019-20 if accurate.

In his report on the MAC, Moellendorf said a tentative date of Dec, 16 has been set for a celebration when the facility gets done. He said current plans call for it to be at 2 p.m. that third Wednesday in December.

The commission also heard plans from Thomas Reed to enhance Lone Mountain Park Trail as an Eagle Scout volunteer project, a report on the residential construction tax budget, and directed Moellendorf and his staff to draft possible revisions to guidelines governing the commission. A suggestion to drop membership to seven by attrition and change language calling for meetings at least six times annually, rather than every month, would be considered.